Wednesday, 19 December 2007

OTTAWA - 10:23 a.m., Dec. 19 - Former death row inmateKenneth Richey's fight to regain his freedom will endThursday in a Putnam County courtroom through a dealwith prosecutors that will allow him to walk away afree man, The Lima News has learned.

Richey will plead no contest to involuntarymanslaughter, child endangering and breaking andentering, according to his attorney, Ken Parsignian.Richey was charged in connection with the June 30,1986, fire death of 2-year-old Cynthia Collins at aColumbus Grove apartment complex. As part of the deal,prosecutors have agreed to give Richey credit for timeserved and he will return to Scotland on Friday,Parsigian said.

Richey has maintained his innocence throughout the 21years he's been locked up. He was sentenced to deathfollowing a conviction at 1987 trial. After years ofappeals, Richey was awarded a new trial when the 6thCircuit Court of Appeals earlier this year ruledRichey's trial attorneys didn't do a good enough jobrepresenting him

"An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. It adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization which is itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death. Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."